One out, all out! A conga line of crossness as the tartan mist came down
FOREGOING their usual sunny optimism, the entire SNP contingent at Westminster stomped out of PMQs, stabbing angry fingers at the London air and yelling – until their tonsils all but dangled outside their gnashers – as they did so.
One out, all out! The SNP’s leader here, Ian Blackford, had just been booted out by Speaker Bercow for refusing to accept the authority of the Chair. Up and off they went, every SNP Member in the Chamber following one another in file towards the double doors. It was a conga line of crazy crossness. The tartan mist had come down.
‘*$&!*%!!’ they screamed. Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) gave a disobliging gesture to the Speaker. Angus MacNeil (Western Isles) and Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) huffed and puffed, swinging shoulders like pub bouncers after trouble. Springy-footed Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South), in training shoes and punk-rock trousers, moved so close to Conservative MPs it seemed she was going to nut ’em.
The back of the conga line was brought up by a grey-haired, soberly suited MP who rather lacked his clan’s molten aggression. He settled for extending a pudgy hand and giving a shy little wave goodbye.
Up in the Chair, Speaker Bercow gasped like a guppy-fish, his voice failing: ‘Don’t tell me what the procedures are!’ Shades of the poor, late Michael Martin, who near the end of his Speakership, as his authority withered likewise, was reduced to bawling: ‘Don’t you tell me how to do my job!’
THE trouble had started after an exchange between Theresa May and Mr Blackford, who was unhappy that the previous day’s time-limited Brexit debate had not included a specific discussion about Scottish devolution. After what he felt was an unsatisfactory reply from Mrs May, Mr Blackford announced his intention to propose the House go at once into private session.
This is an obscure Parliamentary wheeze used as a way of causing a hiccup in proceedings and thus gaining attention. We should not be entirely shocked if the whole protest were planned. Mr Bercow refused to accept Mr Blackford’s legitimate demand for an instant vote. Mr Blackford remained on his feet. ‘Sit down, young man,’ bawled Bercow. Young man, indeed! Mr Blackford is older than the Squeaker. ‘No!’ shouted some SNP voices. Greatly incensed, they clapped Mr Blackford. When he refused to resume his seat, Mr Bercow red-carded him, so he had to leave the Commons for the rest of the day, without pay.
I do love a walk-out. It caused mayhem with PMQs (which is these days not worth revering) and it created a stir, which is what politicians are surely meant to do. Here was the SNP, which so often disdains Donald Trump, succumbing to Trumpian histrionics. Up in the visitors’ gallery, a delegation from the Ukrainian parliament stared down, as if thinking: ‘Good griefski! And we thought OUR democracy was chaotic!’
The Tory Chief Whip was crouching beside the Clerk of the House, whose hair was askew. Speaker Bercow flailed unexpectedly in these waters. He normally prides himself on knowing every arcane procedural gambit but, come his biggest test, he froze. Later, recovering his wits, Mr Bercow dismissed the walk-out as a ‘stunt’. The last time we had this sort of caper was a decade ago, when Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems flounced
out. They were cross that they were being denied a referendum on our membership of the EU. Times change. Maybe the Speakership should, too.
amid all this rhubarbery, in the gallery opposite, sat a couple with an infant. With great tenderness, they passed the baby to a young woman with them who had learning difficulties. While the noise from below raged, I found myself transfixed by the look of complete wonder and happiness as this young woman held the tiny child. Parliament seldom felt so marginal.
Witnesses the Nationalist walkout as Ukrainians think ‘Good griefski!’